Just wondering do ye keep all of your children's artwork or what way do you store it. Have presses of DDs art. Need to do a clear out but there's always a reason to keep it e.g that was her first one in cr che etc. How ruthless are ye?

felinefine you just reminded me - I rented a room once in an apartment that had belonged to a grandmother. the walls of the loo were literally wallpapered floor to ceiling in grandkids' art - as in it was glued onto the wall and varnished over. it was gorgeous!

I started laminating the nicer ones or the "big deal" ones (ie when they themselves come home waving them and showing them off lol) - I put a little note on the back re the date, how the child was doing at the time, the little story to match the pic if there is one, and throw it through the laminator. I maybe have a total of 20 pics now after a total of 4.5 yrs (pre)schooling between them, so I'm throwing away way more than I keep - but I like to have a few bits. I personally have nothing whatsoever from my own childhood, so little things like this are important for me to keep. but at the same time, you do have to be ruthless - dd brings home a small tree worth of drawings every month - they all get lovingly admired....one or 2 make it to the fridge...the rest get culled ;)

I keep a few meaningful ones and put them in a photo album. Have one for each child (the ones with the foldy back transparent pages). Put things like any certs or anything else they're proud of in there. It might only be about 4-6 a year. But they know where they are and they love looking back at them. Everything else gets thrown out!

I must be a awful mother, I throw them out, they help start the stove, if they make a really good one I display it in the kitchen for a few weeks, so always have a few there but after that it gets dumped. I keep the odd one if it's terrific. Think I might have about 4 per child that I've kept. I throw everything out not just my kids art work.

My kids produce piles of arts every week. Even if I just keep my favourites I have piles of it. I throw out a lot. But I haven't really found a way of keeping the favourites . . .I should. It's just so time consuming. Might do the lever arch file thing.

We photograph them all, one of the artwork, one of my son holding the picture. Then make a book once a year of all the photos and throw away the originals. During the year the originals are put on the wall of the downstairs toilet but they are thrown away as they are replaced.

I have a big storage box full of my eldest's workbooks and pictures since pre-school and she is in 2nd now. Her little sister's pre-school work is in there now and it is full to the brim. I was looking at them a few days ago thinking about getting rid of some but couldn't do it so I pushed it back in the press.

I will have to downsize it and maybe scan them onto a hard drive instead to keep them.